only bones burned to the glass
by margaritta
Summary: Jane, and contemplating the difference between loving and being in love. (future-fic)


**only bones burned to the glass**

They have a wedding picture up on the wall. Sometimes, a part of him thinks their marriage is something like this – it's beautiful and he loves it more than anything, but he's always thinking of how wrong and tight and uncomfortable the bow tie had felt around his neck.

**-;**

(He remembers holding Angela's hand in front of a crowd, leaning in to kiss her cheek, seeing her smile at him from across the room with Charlotte in her arms and feeling his chest thrum with a love too vast for his body to contain.

He feels that way for Lisbon, too; when she winds her fingers with his he feels warmth spread throughout his body, when they share fudge sundaes together he feels full and happy and free. When she's in danger his whole world stops and he cannot breathe properly until he knows she's safe again, and when he watches her sleep his lips curve into a loving smile.

He loves her. He would gladly give his life for her. He knows he could do – _would_ do – anything for her. But there's always something coiling and clenching in his stomach, rising up his throat, creeping and winding in his head; something that feels wrong.)

**-;**

"So why did you marry her?" Cho asks, and his eyes are on him, hands folded together on the table. The diner is small and bustling, but they're occupying the booth farthest from the entrance and it gives them a minute privacy.

He swallows, looks down at the cup of tea in his hands. "Because I love her," he says, and it's the truth.

**-;**

(Somewhere along the line he realizes they're comfortable. They've known each other for more than a decade now and they've been through everything together. There's no other woman in the world he's closer to.

And maybe that's the problem, he thinks, and his head starts hurting again, his chest feels too full and too empty all at once. When he leaves the dishes in the sink instead of washing them, he hears Lisbon's voice in his head, lecturing or sighing or just being disapproving. He's too close to her. It feels like he has a mother and a sister as well as a wife, all wrapped into one person with beautiful kind eyes that mean the world to him, and it is as though none of them really know how to love differently.)

**-;**

"You are in love with her," Cho says after a brief pause, and nods. "That's something. That's good."

He has to shake his head, and now his gaze is out the stained window. "I don't know," he says. "But I _love_ her."

Cho seems to understand. "Oh."

**-;**

(He married Lisbon because she can light up his world with her smile if she wants to, because she's kind and compassionate and has a heart big enough to fit a broken creature like himself. Because her eyes are bright and honest and warm, and because she refused to let go even when he begged her to without using any words. Because they have occasionally and casually almost died in front of each other while hunting down monsters and because they have saved each other more times than they can count.

Because they have perfected the art of ignoring the cracks in each other's hearts and holding on to the few parts that are still intact.

He married Lisbon because he loves her, but he never truly stopped to think that maybe he isn't in love with her.

It's something that keeps him awake at night and there are times when he sleeps; when he sees her in his dreams, too bright and too white to look at, skin pale and splattered with blood. In his dreams, her hand splays over his heart and it feels cold and warm at the same time, and when she speaks, he hears Angela's voice.

There's a wedding ring around her finger that matches the one around his own and it's different than the one he had been wearing for almost two decades until he finally took it off. Sometimes, he cannot tell the difference and the two rings, old and new, blur together until they become a red line like a cut across the skin. Sometimes, the difference is too big and too clear and he almost wishes he couldn't tell them apart.

He loves Teresa Lisbon. It's something that he knows, has known for a long time, a thing as sure and as physical as a knife wound, a bloody curl into his flesh that will never heal.

He was in love with Angela. It's something that he also knows, and when he lies awake at night, he tries very hard to tell himself that he's in love with Lisbon too.)

**-;**

"She loves you too," Cho says, voice the same like it always is.

He's trying to concentrate on the flight of a flock of birds against the evening sky, or the teacup in his hands, or the colorful patterns of the tapestry. "Yes," he says, fingers going to his wedding ring, his new wedding ring, a gesture that shouldn't be familiar and shouldn't make his world lurch but does, anyway. "I know."

"And she's in love with you too," Cho continues, and this time their gazes meet, dark eyes boring into blue, sad and accusing, understanding and angry, all wrapped into one.

Jane nods, "I know that too," and his voice is too low, too choked, torn from his throat like a broken thing.

**-;**

("Are you ever going to stop doing that?" Lisbon asks one evening, exasperated, and he doesn't think she understands any more than he does.

"I'm sorry, Teresa," he says absently, and steals a glance over her shoulder at the wedding picture, always on the wall, always bright and glossy and happy. He feels like he's still wearing the bow tie. He feels like one of those days, it's going to choke him.)

**-;**

Cho leans back in his chair, arms folded together in front of him, and when he speaks again, Jane almost thinks this is the most talkative he's seen the other man in a long time. Maybe that means something. Maybe it doesn't. "I don't think she wants kids and dogs and a white picket fence, if that makes you feel any better." His tone is dry and biting but it's the surface, Jane knows, he can hear hints of sorrow behind it-

"We haven't really talked about that stuff," he says, not very eloquently, and Cho nods again, a small gesture. He has to clear his throat a little, has to make his voice sound normal again. "Honestly, I don't think we ever will."

"Yeah, me neither." Cho tilts his head to the side, seems to be thinking, analyzing, trying to decide. "What _do_ you feel about her?" he says finally, and perhaps that isn't the question he wanted to ask.

He doesn't think he can lie, now. He and Cho know each other maybe too well for that. "If anything happened to her – if I lost her-" he stops, takes a small breath, "I'd die."

For a brief moment, they're both silent, until Cho exhales, averts his gaze from Jane's and leans forwards again, arms resting on the table that gives off splinters if you're not careful enough. "Yeah. That's what I feared."

When Jane brings the cup to his lips, he notices that the tea has gone cold.


End file.
